Living with the Sacred: The Home Altar as Ex-voto

Using Italian-American and Mexican-American examples from her research on Catholic women’s domestic altar traditions, folklorist Kay Turner discusses the liveliness of relationships between women and the saints they venerate personally. For these women, holy images and statues are not just static representations, but signs of affiliation and maternal legacy. At the altar associations with the saints are built over time, using multiple means such as prayer, narrative, and ritual.